Downs reported from both the Eastern and Western fronts during World War II, and was the first to deliver a live broadcast from Normandy to the United States after D-Day.

[11][12] Throughout 1943 Downs delivered intermittent shortwave radio reports on the CBS World News Roundup and concurrently served as the Russia correspondent for Newsweek.

"[16] Over the next several months, correspondents were gradually given more access to liberated areas, and Downs reported on developments such as the summer Russian counteroffensive on the Central Front.

Downs interviewed survivors of the Syrets concentration camp who were forced to participate: [Efim] Vilkis said that in the middle of August the SS mobilized a party of 100 Russian war prisoners, who were taken to the ravines.

[18] Downs returned to the United States in January 1944 with the score of Dmitri Shostakovich's Eighth Symphony after CBS acquired the exclusive American broadcast rights for $10,000.

Downs earned a reputation among colleagues for ignoring the Murrow Boys' newfound celebrity in favor of accompanying soldiers on the front lines.

Fellow Murrow Boys Larry LeSueur and Charles Collingwood also accompanied the invading forces in separate landing craft en route to Utah Beach.

On June 14 Downs managed to find a working transmitter and unwittingly delivered the first live broadcast from the Normandy beachhead to the United States.

[35] In September 1944, Downs covered Operation Market Garden alongside his former United Press colleague Walter Cronkite, following the 101st Airborne Division's fight to maintain control of key bridges.

The experience provoked increasing anti-German sentiment among the men, including Murrow, who was strongly rebuked by Richard C. Hottelet for remarking that "there were twenty million Germans too many in the world."

By 1945 the Murrow Boys had grown notably more disillusioned after witnessing years of combat, with Bill Downs saying later, "By the time the war ended, all our idealism was gone...Our crusade had been won, but our white horses had been shot out from under us.

"[41] In March 1945, Downs and correspondents from the other major networks drew lots in Paris to determine who would parachute into Berlin during the first phase of the battle and deliver the first broadcast in the event that the Western Allies reached the city first.

Downs described the Spitfires and Typhoons overhead flying north in pursuit of Germans reportedly attempting to escape to Nazi-occupied Norway, Sweden, and Denmark.

[48] The group then made stops in Cairo, Baghdad, and Sri Lanka before reaching East Asia in August to cover the final days of the Pacific Theatre.

Over the following several months the group toured Asia, making stops in China, French Indochina, Thailand, Burma, the Malay States, and Java.

[51] In late September 1945 the correspondents covered the postwar turmoil in Saigon, soon after the August Revolution and the arrival of the British South East Asian Command.

Downs and fellow correspondent James McGlincy were invited for lunch with Colonel A. Peter Dewey at a villa being used as the headquarters for the OSS operation in the region.

[49] The revolt was ultimately put down by British and French forces who employed the aid of leftover Japanese soldiers in Saigon.

Part of his report was carried across all networks despite protests from several wire service agencies who insisted that a neutral Naval officer should make the flight.

In one televised report, he stood in a decimated Korean village next to the remains of a peasant's home as the camera showed an old man holding the hand of a child as they walked down the road.

[69][70] In 1956, he was abruptly called back from Rome to make room for Winston Burdett, a move that ultimately marked the end of Downs' career as a foreign correspondent.

Downs ran nightly screenings of the broadcast at his home in Rome to packed houses, mostly consisting of Americans, including members of the State Department and military attachés.

[79] On November 2, 1952, Downs made a somber appearance with Edward R. Murrow on See It Now after the Ivy Mike operation, the first successful testing of a thermonuclear weapon.

[6][82] At one point, he was among a crowd of reporters on the floor as vice presidential candidate Richard Nixon gave a press conference, with Murrow and Cronkite in the anchor booth for CBS.

Despite this, he made sporadic televised appearances on See It Now and served as the occasional co-host of the Longines Chronoscope along with Edward P. Morgan, where they interviewed Eleanor Roosevelt in 1953.

[89] However, according to David Schoenbrun, by the 1960s the era of the Murrow Boys "freewheeling, making all the decisions, had definitely come to a close," and that challenging management "had become a cardinal sin that would not be tolerated."

The mistakes will be my mistakes—the failures will have my fiat—the successes, if any or none, will not be subject to people who worry about thick lenses, long noses, or advertising agency or affiliate bias.

[90] One of his final major assignments for CBS was aboard the USS Randolph to cover the John Glenn orbital spaceflight mission on February 20, 1962.

[93][94] As the Pentagon correspondent, Downs said on air that General Counsel of the Army Robert Jordan's blunt statement on the Mỹ Lai Massacre may have been the first time a "high defense official" publicly expressed concern that American soldiers in Vietnam "might have committed genocide.

"[95] In 1970, he switched to covering ecological issues, and in his later years he was given smaller assignments on ABC Evening News, where he worked alongside his former CBS colleagues Howard K. Smith and Harry Reasoner as well as Barbara Walters.